Battle of the Takhts: What's tearing Sikh institutions apart?
(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated June 9, 2025)In a faith where five thrones symbolise unity, two just went to war. On May 21, a religious cannonball was fired from the east: Takht Sri Patna Sahib, one of Sikhism's five revered seats, located in Bihar. The Panj Pyare or 'five beloved' leaders of Patna have declared as tankhaiya, i.e. guilty of religious misconduct, two of their senior clerical peers back in Punjab: the acting jathedar of Akal Takht, the supreme seat of Sikh authority in Amritsar, as well as the Takht Damdama Sahib head.advertisementThe flashpoint? A decision by the Akal Takht to reinstate a controversial former jathedar, Giani Ranjit Singh Gauhar, without so much as consulting Patna Sahib, which had dismissed him in 2022 amidst a welter of corruption and other allegations.The response from Amritsar was instant. The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), which controls the Akal Takht's management, thundered its disapproval and demanded that Patna Sahib retract its edict. The latter refused to blink. What started as a personnel shuffle is now an all-out turf war. At stake: not just religious authority but the very idea of Sikh unity. The battlelines are blurring faith, power and politics in a way that's left the global Sikh community rattled.
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If this feels unprecedented, it's not. In 2008, then jathedar of Patna Sahib, Giani Iqbal Singh, had openly challen-ged the Akal Takht's supremacy. That spat was hushed up via backchannel diplomacy. This one is being livestreamed—on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram. Every edict, every insult, every act of defiance is now a global push notification. The timing couldn't be worse. Sikh institutions are already reeling from the recent sacking of three jathedars—the previous Akal Takht chief and heads of two other Punjab-based Takhts—by the SGPC, in a move seen by many as politically engineered. It was supposed to be a course correction. Instead, it has triggered a free-for-all.OLD FAULT LINESFor the faithful, the crisis is more than administrative. And it's exposing fault lines long buried under the surface. The Akal Takht, established by Guru Hargobind in 1606 as a seat of power and justice, has operated as the first among equals: issuing hukamnamas (edicts), settling disputes, excommunicating those deemed out of line. That moral supremacy was sanctified not just by tradition, but by proximity to power—the SGPC and Punjab's political aura that itself drew from its centrality to Sikhism.Patna Sahib is no upstart. It was formally accepted as one of the five Takhts by the SGPC in the 1950s, but its sanctity predates that by centuries. It is the birthplace of Guru Gobind Singh—the tenth Guru and founder of the warrior Khalsa order—and has long been revered as a spiritual centre for Sikhs in Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal and eastern Uttar Pradesh. The tensions with Takht Hazur Sahib in Nanded, Maharashtra, are another powder keg. Nanded has often bristled at attempts by Amritsar to assert supremacy: on calendar reforms, clergy appointments, even on rituals. It, too, has been known to issue independent edicts.For the global Sikh diaspora, this is nothing short of disillusionment. The schism isn't just geographic—it's ideological. Sikh preachers from California to Calgary are offering counter-narratives—filling the vacuum left by dithering Takhts. This doctrinal free market may be democratising discourse, but it's also breeding chaos. With no clear line of command, contradictory edicts are now routine. The current stand-off may still be walked back through closed-door parleys. But some damage seems to have been done already.advertisementSubscribe to India Today Magazine
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